Romney at CPAC: Geared Up for 2012

Armed with enough one-liners for a stand-up routine, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney delivered his first stump speech of the 2012 presidential campaign before a gathering of conservative activists Friday in Washington.

Mr. Romney hasn’t made an official announcement about his intentions to run for the Republican presidential nomination, but his remarks before a packed crowd on Day Two of the Conservative Political Action Conference gave the unmistakable impression of a man already in campaign mode.

His wife, Ann, kicked things off by telling thousands of activists in a cavernous hotel ballroom Friday morning, “I, for one, would like to see him lead as president of the United States.” The governor took the stages to Van Halen’s “Right Now” while the crowd, which included a number of supporters sporting “Romney” signs and stickers, gave him a standing ovation.

Mr. Romney directed his entire speech at the man he hopes to run against more than a year from now: President Barack Obama. He delivered his broadsides like a stand-up comedian.

On Mr. Obama’s pivot to the center in his State of the Union address:

“What we were hearing was not just a new-and-improved Barack Obama. It was an entirely different Barack Obama. Saul Alinsky, he was out. Jeffrey Immelt, he was in.

“The president went from ‘Change You Can Believe In’ to ‘Can you believe this change?”

On Mr. Obama tapping Bill Daley to replace Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff:

“He replaced his Chicago politician chief of staff with a fresh face. From Chicago. Named Daley.

“Make no mistake here folks, what we’re watching is not ‘Brave New World.’ What we’re watching is ‘Ground Hog Day.’”

And this, again about the State of the Union:

“It sounded like he was going to dig up the first lady’s garden and put in a Bob’s Big Boy.”

During the speech, which ran about 20 minutes, Mr. Romney leveled more serious charges at the president, accusing Mr. Obama of perpetuating unemployment and foreign policy bungles that have left the U.S. on a precarious perch.

“An uncertain world has been made more dangerous by the lack of clear direction from a weak president,” Mr. Romney said, citing the pro-democratic revolt in Iran, the shelling of a South Korean island by the North Korean military and a “one-sided nuclear treaty” with Russia.

“The cause of liberty cannot endure much more of his they-get, we-give” foreign policy, he said.

The former Massachusetts governor, who lost his 2008 presidential bid in the primary, called the mix of economic indicators “the Obama misery index” because unemployment is stuck above 9%. And he called unemployment lines “President Barack Obama’s Hoover-villes,” a reference to the tent cities that sprung up during the Great Depression named after Republican President Herbert Hoover.

Interspersed between these attacks on the president, the former Massachusetts governor talked about his wife and his father, George Romney, the former governor of Michigan. The crowd, which included plenty of his supporters, gave him multiple ovations.

Mr. Romney, who has maintained a relatively low profile in recent months, hinted at the run to come – one pegged to the message that he has better answers to the country’s high unemployment rate than Mr. Obama.

“It is going to take a lot more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work,” said Mr. Romney, a founder and CEO of Bain Capital. “It’s going to take a new president.”

The room erupted.

“If I were to decide to run for president…(big applause)…it wouldn’t take me two years to wake up to the jobs crisis hurting America,” he said. “And I wouldn’t be asking Timothy Geithner how the economy works or Larry Summers how to start a business. I know.”

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